That was many many years ago, where our Empire was a rag-tag group of people that conquered lands and was a small aspiring group of lads. Where you could go from one edge to the other in a single day. Ever since Melphistoles' idea soon became a reality, and the days of Strong Eat the Weak are part of the history books now where children and students read about it peacefully without worrying about food or shelter.
A day where we used to barter using stones and gems. Haha.
So I joined them! If this was a storybook it would be noble and great! Where everything makes sense! But this is reality, where even the most ridiculous things seem to happen! Where nothing makes sense and we try to find some sense!
It wasn't like I raised my hand and said, "I'll be the Minister of Finance" our group was a mess!
We went from one city to another, dethroning those in power and establishing a system that was like Melphistoles vision, but these guys!
They immediately left the city once they finished dethroning the oppressors! I was the only one with enough sense to start talking to the merchants! To investigate the inner-workings! I had to clean up their mess!
One time they chased a tyrant down his precious mine, and then said, "If we destroy the mine then he can't get out!" before I could say anything I heard a KABOOM and the mine was destroyed!
That mine! That mine could have funded the 3 cities worth of expenditures for DECADES before they mindlessly made it go KABOOOM with a purple mushroom cloud in the background, their bright smiles and my distraught face, ahhh I still remember as if it was yesterday.
It was a horror! A nightmare! There were so many times where I needed to persuade them that talking has more power than fists! These poor, innocent lords that they sought after were greedy but not evil. Force and Diplomacy can go a very long way.
You didn't need to force everyone into how you wanted to live, adjusting the payoffs, the players inside the game and the knowledge was enough to change the optimal strategy.
I'm going on a tangent, but I had to explain it to them. Let's say you were playing a game of rock, paper and scissors. You know the rules, so do I. The optimal strategy is to go either Rock, Paper or Scissors.
Let's change the payoffs. You win when both players play paper, if you play anything else you win nothing. The optimal strategy all of a sudden becomes to continuously play paper!
It's amazing!
You didn't need to beat them up if they went rock when you played scissors! Ahhh!!! We were all young back then. Haah, I was young back then too. I underestimated how 'creative' some people can be.
If the optimal strategy was to both play paper, then if someone was ambitious and creative enough they would create the gun hand that beats paper! It was a chaotic mess to create a system where people acting selfishly in their best interest resulted in the betterment of the whole.
But, the silver lining in between is a convincing threat and a cajoling reward. "This is the path I'm taking, if you go against it then we will have to clash swords." The threat, and then the reward, "If you help me with me, you'll be greatly rewarded"
In the end the people who oppose you will be miserable or die, and those who follow you will live and prosper. It's simplified of course but in the end, if the people who are under you live a lavish life because of your cruel choices then people would view it as a necessary evil. No one calls the system a blunder when they kill a person who massacred an entire village.
They prefer 1 death to deter future serial murderers!
You'll end up with a group of people that find more benefit in maintaining the rules of the games rather than breaking it.
Think about a room full of 100 people. If you placed 4 semi-automatic rifles in there and 1 person gave 4 people the semi-automatic rifles, they have complete control over the 96 other people.
The 1 person, the leader would find it in their best interest to keep the 4 people playing the rules of the game and not betraying the leader. The rules of the game therefore must be advantageous to the 4 people so they continue to maintain the rules of the game. They get all the men or women they want, all the food, all the produce, they need to live like kings.
Let's think about the room of 100 people again, this time no rifles. We place 100 Handguns in there instead! The same principle applies, there will emerge a leader of the room who will need to establish rules so that the people with 100 Handguns are satisfied with the status quo and won't revolt. They need to live in a society where the rules benefit everyone, where we establish things such as rights to personal property, rights to freedom of speech, rights to water and healthcare. Thus, if someone tries to instigate a rebellion, most of the people enjoy the status quo and would shoot the person trying to start a rebellion.
This is the principles of rules of the game. BUT THEY DON'T GET IT!
I told them the exact same thing, and then said, "So all we need to do is to steal their guns while they're asleep!" This isn't the point! That isn't the point at all! They would just sleep with their guns! The principles! Understand the rules of the game!
People will move in ways that you want them to if you establish the right rules even if you're not there!
That's the principle behind how all the cities you left behind are still loyal to you! I had to do that! Me! I had to be the one who had his head crammed with hundreds of hours of thinking to consider the best rules, and then thousands to implement those rules!
Then I continued to do it for each subsequent dimension, but it got easier ever since.